'The Condemned’: Upstate NY invention, the electric chair, led new age of capital punishment (video)

“The Condemned,” a new podcast by syracuse.com that launches on June 1, tells the stories of five men from Onondaga County who were condemned to die in a machine invented in Upstate New York: the electric chair.

After a series of botched hangings in the late 1800s, New York state led the country in finding a way to execute condemned prisoners that was thought to be more humane and clean. Onondaga County had its last hanging on August 5, 1881. By January 1888, the state’s commission recommended that the electric chair be used.

The first execution by electrocution in America was carried out at the Auburn Prison on Aug. 6, 1890. Electrocution execution techniques and procedures developed in the state would be the standard used throughout the country.

Today, nine states still have the electric chair as a legal form of execution. While it is not the preferred method in any state, it has still been used as recently as 2020.

If you want to learn more about the history of the electric chair and tales from the prisoners put on death row, check out “The Condemned” on our Acast page. You can also listen on other popular platforms including iTunes, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher.

The first episodes will be released on June 1. Want to be one of the first to listen? Make sure to subscribe on your preferred platform to get new episodes as they become available.